Chapter 9: Evil God Statue and Sacrifice Book

Old Street, before Jiao's Meat Shop.

Meng Meng Shenji, the Tiangong Sect salesman, took the four hundred taels of silver notes handed over by Li Yu, smiled with satisfaction, then whistled, and instructed the mechanical maid named Hong Dou:

"Go, pack your luggage yourself, and add a spiritual energy stone."

After speaking, he looked at the permanently closed meat shop and the courtyard behind it.

He nodded, took out paper and pen from his vest pocket, and recorded the address.

At this time, the mechanical maid had already grabbed a tattered cloth bag, jumped off the shop again, and stood beside Li Yu very obediently.

Before Li Yu could open his mouth to ask about some maid operation details, Meng Meng Shenji lost his patience and took the lead:

"Re-recognition of the master and operation instructions are all in her bag."

"Three days later, the first issue of 【Wanfu Daily】 will be delivered to your door."

After saying this, he didn't give Li Yu a chance to tangle, jumped onto the steam shop, and went to the next street in a flash.

Clearly, this guy was a bit annoyed because he didn't squeeze out too much profit, and his after-sales attitude was extremely poor.

Li Yu saw this and didn't feel angry at all.

He felt that he had taken advantage of a lot in this transaction, and his mood was beautiful.

He opened the courtyard door and was about to greet his mechanical maid

Turning his head, he saw that her mechanical head had already drooped, her fox eyes tightly shut—had she actually shut down directly?

Li Yu's face couldn't help but darken, and he cursed the unscrupulous merchant under his breath.

Was it calculated so precisely that it just happened to use up the last bit of spiritual energy?

At this moment, it wasn't convenient for him to study how to change the batteries for his own maid on the street, so he had no choice but to resign himself to his fate, step forward, hold the maid, and carry her into the courtyard.

Once he got his hands on her, she was unexpectedly light.

He could even hold her with one hand, tucking her under his arm to bring her inside.

Considering that the sight wasn't very flattering, Li Yu still obediently picked her up, letting that delicate, pretty face—which was almost indistinguishable from a real young girl—rest on his shoulder.

This scene reminded Li Yu of some jokes from his past life, like "shopkeepers paying attention to packaging."

"But even in my past life, I couldn't find a doll this realistic."

"And here, a Sequence 7 powerhouse of the Tiangong Sect can craft one, and it can be discarded at will after use. Since it can be sold by a salesman on the streets, I'm afraid such a mechanical maid isn't considered a very rare curiosity."

"Especially now that the so-called 【Tiangong Secret Core】 is gone, its utility must have been reduced by ninety-nine percent."

Muttering to himself, Li Yu carried the maid back to the main room.

Immediately, he reached out to take the cloth bag and opened it, spreading it out on the table.

Inside was a small leather booklet, a set of maid's clothing, and a crystal with a strange shape, glowing with rainbow-like fire colors throughout, but with obvious impurities inside.

The latter must be the so-called lowest-grade spiritual energy stone.

Li Yu didn't move it around; he first picked up the leather booklet, on the cover of which was written: "Linglong Doll Operation Manual: Hongdou Chapter."

Below the title, the serial number was also marked: The Thirty-Sixth Unit.

"So, this is still mass-produced?"

With a bit of doubt, Li Yu opened the manual.

Sure enough, the content on the first page answered him directly; what met his eyes was the creator's self-introduction.

"I am Yun Yun Dongjun, a disciple of the Tiangong Sect. Having been promoted to 【Dollmaker】 for one month, my hands were itching, so I spent a year casting a complete set of Linglong dolls, totaling thirty-six units, each with extraordinary spiritual effects. They are my proudest works."

"This doll is named Hongdou. Because it is the last one, I have done my utmost to load it with almost all functional spiritual effects..."

Seeing the beginning, Li Yu didn't show any joy.

When he bought it, Meng Meng Shenji had already made it clear that the useful things on this maid doll had almost all been dismantled, leaving only an empty shell.

Fortunately, what he paid for was only the remaining part.

The manual wasn't thick, and he finished reading it quickly.

Although he already had psychological expectations, a trace of regret and melancholy still appeared on his face.

"Tsk tsk!"

"According to what that Yun Yun Dongjun said, Hongdou wasn't a mechanical maid at all in the beginning, but an extraordinary doll capable of fighting and assisting its master, and it was the most perfect of the thirty-six dolls."

"I don't know what happened later that caused almost all the useful functions to be dismantled, especially that Tiangong Secret Core that could bring extraordinary alien power and extremely high intelligence..."

While Li Yu was muttering, he reached out and took the spiritual energy stone with many impurities.

Then he paced to the back of Hongdou.

He first groped around the back of her head, and without knowing what switch he triggered, with a "click," the skull opened, exposing the extremely complex devices inside, while the area where the brain core or similar things should have been placed was completely empty.

Only one or two traces like flesh stains remained, making it completely impossible to infer the appearance of the secret core from this.

The Tiangong Secret Core is the core heritage of the Tiangong Sect, and it is almost impossible for outsiders to obtain it.

Li Yu closed the skull and reached down to touch further.

Finding a catch at the waist, accompanied by the release of old steam, a mechanism clearly intended for placing the spiritual energy stone popped out.

"I don't need too much of a surprise!"

"I just hope it can help me clean up that damn storage room and those two corpses that have already started to rot; that would be worth more than the price."

After muttering, Li Yu directly pried out the scrapped gray-black spiritual stone inside and put in the new one.

In an instant, the mechanism retracted. Inside, a clicking sound immediately rang out, and streams of red steam containing a faint fragrance sprayed out from the gaps all over her body. Her head jerked up, the red gemstone on her forehead flickered with fire colors again, and a pair of soul-captivating fox eyes slowly opened.

And Li Yu, as soon as the change occurred, had already stood in front of her in advance.

As their gazes met, a voice that was full of mechanical sensation but also completely the tone of a young girl rang out:

"Linglong Number 36, Hongdou, reboot successful. Human life form detected. Commencing master recognition."

Following the mechanical voice, the gemstone at the center of her brow immediately bloomed with a cluster of red light, beginning to envelop Li Yu from head to toe.

Good heavens!

Was it really a scanning function?

Just as Li Yu felt deeply magical, the mechanical voice continued:

"New master is a human life form in the juvenile stage, male. Recording shell aura."

"Warning! Warning!"

"New master's shell is suspected of having encountered a parasitic strange object... Initiating spiritual medical function... Initiation failed!"

"Initiating clearing function... Initiation failed!"

"Initiating freezing function... Initiation failed!"

"Initiating bounty function... Initiation failed!"

Each of these moving young girl's voice sentences drilled into Li Yu's ears, but it made him feel extremely uncomfortable.

He now completely understood that the mechanical maid "Hongdou" before him was originally a truly rare and good item.

Now, it was all gone.

At this moment, he really wanted to step forward and cover this maid's mouth, telling her he knew, and to stop talking.

Seemingly sensing the new master's regret, after a bout of stuttering, she gave up on the initiation.

A pair of fox eyes stared fixedly at Li Yu, and she said gently:

"Master recognition successful!"

"Master, please give your orders!"

After a round of tossing and turning, Li Yu no longer had any fluke of picking up a bargain in his heart, concluding that you get what you pay for.

Not paying much attention, he immediately pointed to the maid's clothing on the table, which looked like a half-sleeved skirt, and said:

"Put on your clothes and follow me."

"Very well, Master."...

"Clean them up; do not leave any corpse parts, bloodstains, or foul odors."

"Yes, Master."

Following the end of this conversation, he saw Hongdou, who had already put on her clothes and looked like a truly pretty young girl, quickly walk out from behind Li Yu.

She strode into the small dark room, picked up the corpses of Jiao Qing and Sun Sun Sanniang with both hands, and went straight to the open space in the courtyard.

After stacking them together, that young girl's voice rang out again:

"Initiating corpse-burning function!"

"Boom!"

With almost no warning, Li Yu, the master, only saw a red light suddenly erupt from Hongdou's belly, traveling all the way up, and then he saw a large cluster of flames glowing with an eerie blue light and still clinging to some kind of liquid spray from her mouth, landing directly on the two corpses.

An eerie scene immediately appeared.

Normally, even if a fierce fire burns a corpse, it would take a long time.

But the two corpses that touched the ghostly blue liquid fire were quickly burned through, becoming crispy and crumbling. After dozens of breaths, they even began to vaporize, turning into streams of blue-black mist visible to the naked eye, drifting toward the sky.

=9+Shu_ba

When the last wisp of corpse mist dissipated and the flames ceased, no trace of any corpse could be seen in the courtyard, leaving only a gray-white mark, neither too large nor too small, that could be directly turned into the soil and buried.

"Good!"

To others, it looked terrifying and horrific, but as the master, Li Yu couldn't help but applaud.

Previously, he was still worrying about how to deal with these disgusting and thorny "legacies" left by the original couple, but now he finally had a solution.

Who could have imagined?

This pretty and beautiful maid doll, looking like a fox girl, was actually a top-tier corpse-burning furnace.

Just this function alone made Li Yu feel very satisfied.

"That Yun Yun Dongjun must be someone who habitually kills people, steals goods, and destroys corpses."

"Otherwise, why develop such a perverted corpse-burning function?"

While complaining about the maid's creator, Li Yu didn't delay at all; he took the key and walked toward the storage room that had once brought him no small amount of psychological shadow.

Before unlocking it, he turned his head to instruct Hongdou:

"When I open the door in a moment, you will burn all the filthy flesh, toxic food, and everything inside completely clean."

After finishing, as if thinking of something, he added another sentence:

"If there are things similar to extraordinary curiosities, you can keep them temporarily for me to deal with."

He added this because memories surfaced in Li Yu's mind again.

Jiao Qing and Sun Sun Sanniang, as devout believers of the Jinshen Sect, were able to come to Wanfu City in the first place because they had obtained some heritage from searching corpses.

Logically speaking, there should still be some strange objects used for sacrifice, evil god statues, and cultivation secret manuals among their legacies.

But Li Yu had only found the account book.

If he hadn't guessed wrong, the remaining things should be in this storage room.

After confirming there were no omissions, Li Yu unlocked the door with his hands moving fast. Accompanied by a clanging sound, the iron chains covered in forbidden talismans fell one after another, the door swung open, and the familiar disgusting movement was about to happen again.

But this time, a young girl stepped over and blocked Li Yu.

Before that terrifying stench storm could sweep over, she opened her mouth a step ahead, and streams of ghostly blue liquid fire immediately ignited everything.

Even including the smell.

To prevent the scene inside the storage room from triggering the forbidden egg in his belly to revolt, Li Yu retreated directly after unlocking the door, leaving Hongdou to step inside.

Because the storage room was completely sealed, the mist from the vaporization of those evil things could only be discharged from the doorway.

This time, he waited in the courtyard for a full hour.

Seeing that the corpse mist was gradually thinning until it disappeared, he then slowly approached.

Just in time, Hongdou, who had become dirty, walked out with a gray face, still in that pretty young girl's mechanical voice:

"Master, the filthy flesh and toxic food have all been burned clean."

"And I discovered one unknown evil god statue and one unknown cultivation manual."

"Warning! Warning!"

"The strange object parasitic in the master's body is suspected to have a spiritual connection with this evil god. Please handle it with caution, Master."

"Hongdou suggests initiating the selling function to list this curiosity for sale at... Initiation failed!"

Li Yu had originally been about to enter the storage room to inspect those two curiosities.

But hearing this, he couldn't help but stop.

It wasn't that he was worried about any unknown danger; in fact, he already had some understanding of the two curiosities in the storage room from his memories.

What really interested Li Yu were the few words mentioned by this mechanical maid.

"Now it seems that although the Tiangong Secret Core is gone, Hongdou still has a certain degree of intelligence."

"And then there's the so-called selling function... It seems the Tiangong Sect has an extremely convenient trading network internally?"

Li Yu guessed for a while, then stepped past Hongdou and officially entered the storage room that his original self had also been incredibly curious about.

This time, he didn't see those toxic grains, rotten fruits, various mushy filthy flesh, or the human fragments that made one feel physically uncomfortable.

What met his eyes was an empty storage room.

Only at the far end remained a sacrificial table.

It was covered with all kinds of eerie yellow talismans and burning black incense, but there were no offerings; they should have all been processed by Hongdou.

In the center area was placed an extremely eerie, mottled statue. It had no human appearance at all, looking more like a twisted, deformed, and filthy lump of flesh, with scarlet, evil eyes embedded in it.

A thick picture book was also placed in front of the sacrificial table.

It was unknown how many times it had been flipped through by generations of masters; it was greasy, filthy, and tattered.

In Li Yu's mind, memories related to these two objects immediately surfaced:

"Jinshen Statue."

"Because it has been worshipped by multiple devout believers in succession and soaked in forbidden obsessions and filthy flesh, it has transformed into an extraordinary strange object. If the prayer is correct, there is a chance to generate a spiritual connection with the 【Jinshen】."

"Holding this object will result in being polluted by the Jinshen's evil thoughts day and night, and while gaining some alien power, one will also become increasingly insane."

"Jiao Qing and Sun Sun Sanniang originally found this object on the corpse of that believer and frequently performed sacrifices afterward, which is how they obtained various alien powers, escaped the Haotian Sect's pursuit, and entered Wanfu City."

"Jinshen Sacrificial Manual."

"Records many rituals for worshipping the Jinshen, as well as a list of offerings. The Jinshen encourages believers to perform sacrifices to it and will give corresponding rewards."

As Li Yu recalled this, his gaze couldn't help but focus on the statue.

Abruptly, at this moment, the statue seemed to come alive.

It began to squirm and expand continuously, splitting and reproducing. Around it, patches of dark and ominous water vapor steamed, evil faint light appeared, and endless filth and forbidden monsters surged out, only to be swallowed back by the massive lump of flesh like a sea, over and over again, in a cycle.

The sacrificial manual was also blown open by an evil wind from an unknown source, revealing page after page of various sacrificial methods.

A rustling whisper also drilled into Li Yu's ears along with the evil wind that carried a faint stench.

The first to come was exactly that vague, horrific nursery rhyme he had heard when he first trans-migrated.

This time, he heard it clearly.

(End of chapter)